Redefining Re@l
by Lyra Kamiya
Summary: Then again... maybe we're not so sure on what is real... and neither will you be, once you realize that the Digital world is more real than out own *Matrix/DT02(my tamers)/Tamers crossover*
1. Default Chapter

Ok… if I attempt to chapter this, you are to all kill me

Everyone seems to do crossovers… *smirks* it's my turn now… To combine two of the greatest things ever… Digimon and The Matrix. First, think for a moment about those two things. Then, begin reading…

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon, The Matrix, or the few songs I randomly inserted. Kat, Hannah, William, Oniyami, etc. are characters © of Neo! Anime, USA… you must talk to me before using them. (Ok, so Hannah is Bri's… and Oniyami is Adrie's…)

And now for my first attempt since Reflection Reflected at a super long story… *The title should be in OCRA font type…*

****

REDEFINING=RE@L

Lyra of Destiny

"What... do you think is real?"

**********

'I wonder what it's like to be the, Rain-maker...

'I wonder what it's like, to know that I made the rain?

'I'd store it, in boxes, with...'

A girl with fiercely orange hair stood, leaning against the wall in the tunnel, where she usually was, tapping her foot to the beat of 'Real World'. She wore a smug look on her face as she enjoyed the true irony of the song... The blinkers and brake lights of various cars passing by glinted off her violet sunglasses in deep contrast to the orange tones of the setting sun.

And then a phone rang.

"Uh… this had *better* be good," she complained, shaking her headphones to falls around her neck as she retrieved her cell phone from her card pouch and flipped it open. She glanced at the 'unknown' reading on the caller I.D.… she knew who it was, all right… 

"This is Nonaka. What do you want?"

Her last name had become her code name… less people knew her as that than Rika or even Ruki, particularly since it was an adjusted last name, not just an ordinary one.

"Nonaka? Jenrya. They found another one."

"What?" she hissed.

"You heard me. She's from America, they brought her in sometime in the last three days… she's not Japanese, but she knows some… and she's one of us, just the same."

"Which 'us'?"

"Both."

Silence…

"You contact Matsuda. Renamon and I will go to the briefing. Meet us there if you can…" the girl called Nonaka finally responded.

"Renamon will need to upload, then…"

"We're in through the portal, not the program. And even if we weren't… this is a situation. There've only been three of us before… well, three that are both, four that are only the one… to find another, is just… fantastic…"

"I'm beginning to think that all of us who are Destined have that power…"

"We'll see, Jenrya… for now, you and your bunny stay out of our way."

"Right, I'll contact Matsuda then." She flipped the phone back shut and sighed.

"It's gonna be a long night…" _Get in gear, Renamon, we're going for a little ride…_

**********

"You didn't answer me. What do you think is real?"

"Come off it. A year ago, I was a normal 14 year old classified as a semi-genius and a dreamer by the in-crowd. Then he showed up… now this… I'm not sure. So you tell me, what's real…?"

"Grr… But what do you *think* is real?"

"Me. Him. Maybe you. Why?" the girl's eyes narrowed, in an attempt at a menacing glare against her interrogator.

"Hold it! Allow me, to continue this…" came a voice from the shadows.

"Nonaka? I'm sorry… I can't allow you to do that…"

"Renamon," with that, the fox type was holding the original interrogator up in the air. "She's one of *us*… I will continue this… Jenrya and Matsuda will assist me upon their arrival…"

"Very well… even if this one is older than you…" Renamon dropped the man.

"You heard what I said. Now get out."

"Yes ma'am, Nonaka…" he scrambled from the room.

"Now then… what's your name?"

"Kat… M. Kat Kappa…" the girl responded, still as icy as before. What do you want? Whatever it is… take it… just not Lopmon."

"Ah, so that's what type of digimon you have…" the girl called Nonaka paced slowly around Kat. "No… we want nothing but your help or at least cooperation. Someone with an attitude such as yours could prove quite useful to our operation…"

"What operation?"

"How long have they had you here?"

"A day… maybe two. Why?"

"They treated you awfully quickly… Your eyes don't hurt? Your muscles? Nothing?" Kat shook her head slowly in response.

"They hurt somewhat… But I don't care, I never so… and none of that matters at this moment…" she glanced at Renamon. "I take it she's your digimon?"

"You make it sound as if I *belong* to her…"

"You two just leave her alone!!" Lopmon said, puffing up in anger and hopping out from behind Kat. "Don't make me digivolve!"

"Oh, it's so cute," the girl said almost sarcastically, though there was a bit of truth in her voice. "He looks like Jenrya's digimon. Maybe we should leave this to them. But then again…" she smirked, "that would ruin all my fun. Oh, I _hope_ I'm not _scaring_ you…" her gaze narrowed at Kat.

"Thanks for the false concern, but I don't scare that easily…" she growled.

"I'll be easier on you, just the same. They call me Nonaka… my real name is Rika or Ruki…" Kat nodded. "This is Renamon. I heard them ask you already... About what you think is real. So I'll explain the rest. What year is it?"

"2002…?"

"2244, uniquely enough. Hard to believe, huh? Now, look out that window behind you…" Kat spun around to face the window as instructed… it was more of a porthole, really, just an encased hole in the wall. Outside all that was visible was a city of metal and a vast variety of vehicles of some sort… nothing but a silver and blue metropolis, under the cover of near darkness of a not only starless but sky-less evening… At least, that's what time Kat guessed it was. And the whole place, though it had a few internal lights obviously, was lit by a red, almost unearthly glow. She took a step closer to the window. Magma. An ocean of magma surrounded the city. The vehicles -- hovercraft, she now guessed -- flew low over its surface, avoiding steaming bubbles that occasionally appeared. All in all, it looked like some strange, futuristic seaside city… very strange, indeed.

"Where… where are we?" Kat demanded suddenly, fully realizing that this was, in fact, reality.

"Yeah, where?!" Lopmon added.

"The last human city to survive past mid-war time…"

"The last one? War? Where are the other cities? What happened to them? And where… is the sun?" Kat rattled out the questions, running back to the window and allowing her eyes to dart in a wild panic around the panorama.

"A few others have been built now… one other, actually, and a few agricultural centers. I'll explain slowly… And the sun? Even if we were on the surface, we wouldn't be able to see it… there's a permanent dry thunderstorm…"

"Well, that's a crime!" Rika looked at her, puzzled, particularly at her sudden outbreak of hyperness. It took most people months to regain this type of energy. Then she thought back to when she and the two boys had been freed… yes, they'd regained their abilities this quickly as well. Kat was definitely one of them. "What's a thunder storm without rain?" Kat completed.

"The storm was created to block out the sun…"

"Who… Why…?"

"We did. Us humans. To stop them…" she walked over to where Kat was standing and glanced out the window, disgust apparent in her face. "The machines… They use to run on solar power… At one point, though, during the war, the humans attacked the sky, creating a sort of thousand-year cloud force field to block out the sun, if _that's_ what you want to call it… But it was meant to cut off their power source… It didn't stop them for long though, they found another power source. One that wouldn't run out for a long, long time…Us… The human body can generate unbelievable amounts of electricity and heat."

"So that's what that place was… that I hope up in… and why…" she touched one of the plastic valves on her arms. "Unreal…"

"Oh no, Kat… real… very real… much more real than the world you've been living in for the last 14 and a half years… That world is, the best way to put it would be, a virtual reality. A permanent one… like a dream you just can't wake up from. But it was about time to rise and shine…" she half smiled.

__

Oh, great… she's got a sense of humor, too… some type of sick, twisted one… "And Digimon? Are they…?"

"More real than the Matrix… that's what we call the world you've been in… "they're sort of a real byproduct of the Matrix, who can exist in any of the worlds… The Digital World wouldn't exist were it not for the Matrix… it was an unexpected effect of creating a computer reality that large… A 'shadow world', if you will, closer to the Matrix in it's type and place but real enough to create living creatures…" her gaze shifted between Renamon and Lopmon.

One thing that doesn't settle well with me…" Kat commented, "is that I've existed in all three…"

"But there's a difference there," Renamon interrupted. "Your self from the Matrix will never truly exist here. Your self from this world will never truly exist in the Matrix, only your mind will… Your form in the Digital World varies; it depends on which world you came from. Come from the Matrix, you're that version, the 'imaginary' you. Come from here, you're real. The Digital World can also act as passage from this place to the Matrix, and reversed, but you can only use one way at a time; either the Digital World, or the phone… Digimon must upload unless they go through the Digital World. Digimon, we are the same in all three worlds… We're not biological material, but we're close enough that we can exist in this world."

"Ok… earlier, I was fine. Now, you just overloaded my brain. I'm overwhelmed… I need my sunglasses. Now I'm gonna start forgetting childhood memories again."

"Might as well. They're not real." Kat looked up at Rika, confused, and shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.

"What?" she shook her head again. "Huh, what the… that guy that just walked by, he…" she looked at the plugs in her arms again.

"He didn't have any of the valves?" Rika asked with a laugh. "No, some of us don't. they're natural beings… not grown in the fields." She trailed off.

"You sound disgusted with them… the people, not just the fields."

"It's why I told you to forget your childhood. It wasn't real… unlike theirs…" she leaned against the wall and held her arms up at an angle, staring at them. "They had both their parents… their real parents, not some randomly chosen ones… And they both were always there for them…"

"Yeah… I'm not sure if I'm insulted or comforted… or both, that my real mom didn't die… Because she wasn't even my mom…"

"You have no mother. None of us do. Only those like him…" she motioned to the door the man had passed by. "But she died, huh?" Kat nodded. "Like I said, it doesn't matter though, because she wasn't your mom." She commented offhand.

"That bad, huh?"

"Why should you care?" she glared back.

"IT may not have been real, but we still have memories of it, so it's close enough, for me at-"

"Nonaka? Call for you," someone said, sticking their head into the room and then disappearing again. She sighed and punched a button on a nearby console.

"Go."

"It's Takato. We ran into a bit of trouble here, but we'll be there soon," Rika stared blankly at the goggle-clad boy on the screen, behind which several digimon were battling. Kat stared in recognition of the majority of the digimon, recognizing some of the plants as from the digital world. Suddenly a boy with blue hair cut in.

"Matsuda, you help Growlmon. Ri-er, Nonaka… We'll be there shortly. Is that the girl?"

"Yes…"

"Well, now there's two of you."

Rika rolled her eyes. "Her digimon's a Lopmon. She's been to the digital world… she's strong and healthy…"

"Sounds like you…" the boy grinned.

"Digi-modify!!" the other one called in the background.

"Shut up. Oh, and Jenrya-kun? Hurry, but be careful, alright?" he gave her a thumbs up, and the screen went blank. "That Matsuda…" she sighed. "He doesn't understand, we can't use our real names outside of the Matrix. We can't let them know who we are… We're the last ones they'd expect, we're mere children, and they still think that they wouldn't free those as young as us…"

"You never told me… what war was it?"

"World War 3… humans against A.I."

"And where, exactly, is the city we're in?"

"In the midst of the Earth's mantle… the only warm place left…"

"Because the sun's gone…" Kat whispered. Rika glanced over at her, her glaring expression wavering for a moment as she felt an inch of sympathy for the girl who'd just been thrown into the situation she'd been in months before.

"I…"

"*ALERT! Clear console area for arrival! Clear console area for arrival!*"

"They're back," Rika said, in the same monotonous voice she had been speaking in, her eyes narrowing at the door. "Follow me…" she turned and marched out the door.

Renamon folded her arms and nodded for Kat to hurry. As she stood up and walked out the door, glancing almost nervously at Renamon, Lopmon turned away from the machinery he'd been studying, leaped towards the door and, spreading his ears like wings, managed to land less-than-gracefully on his Tamer's shoulder. Kat giggled, enjoying the one familiar detail of this world. Her main pet-peeve right now was the loss of her hair… Lopmon obviously agreed, as he patted her cap-covered head and mumbled "oh… it's not soft anymore. What'll I do for a pillow?" and sighed. Kat began giggling again, meriting an odd stare from Renamon. Lopmon quickly sat down on her shoulder and leaned his head against hers. She smiled and nuzzled against him as he adjusted his ears so one flopped over her head. Renamon began walking behind them, so Lopmon turned and stuck his tongue out at her.

"Hey…" Kat scolded. He gave her his standard innocent look and resumed his previous position. She laughed and then sighed… This place was so different… How could it be real? Everywhere she looked, it was one chunk of computers and machinery after another. The walls were literally lined with seemingly random wires. It was like the whole place was one huge computer… _It probably is,_ she realized. Occasionally there was a door way; another room filled with technology, a docking bay for some type of ship, where the heat of the outside magma drifted through, and the occasional exercise or dorm room. Bout most resembled the one she had been questioned in. A few chairs, a table, and a computer console, with the one small window in the back.

Everywhere the only noises were the almost synchronized beat of the two humans' and one digimon's footsteps, along with the clack of typing on various keyboards and occasionally beeps from one of the many computers. Anotherwards, the silence was almost deafening. And nothing to smell or touch either; all surfaces were smooth and metallic, and the only smell since they had passed that docking bay was the cool, sterilized scent of metal, plastic, and rubber.

Rika stopped… "In, she said, as startlingly unemotionally as ever. Kat nodded and walked into the room, Lopmon hopping down only to be caught in her arms.

"You are not running off, Lopmon," he nodded in response. A random footstep gained their attention. 

"There you are! At last!" said one of the boys now standing in the room. His voice was full of emotion… it was the total opposite of Rika's to the point of being almost frightening.

"Look, Lopmon… It's the guys from the transmission," Kat said, partially in awe. She was met by another nod. "I dunno… do you think they're cute?" she said jokingly.

Lopmon would have facefaulted had Kat not been holding him. "I'm a guy, you expect *me* to know these things?" Kat shrugged. "Anyway, two things. One, he's got a Terriermon," he squealed, pointing out his 'twin' "and two, if you want my opinion on the people around here and looks… That Renamon is *hot*!"

"Never heard you use that type of language before…" she sweatdropped. "But besides that point… What kinda digimon is that?" she pointed to the red and black dinosaur who stood beside the boy who was previously wearing goggles.

"Giulmon?" the digimon answered by tilting his head to the side. "Ooo… you other human girl?" he questioned. "And you look like Terriermon after he been playing in dirt!!" he laughed ( a strange, nasally yet somehow extremely amusing sound coming from a dinosaur…) obviously referring to Lopmon.

"Jar-Jar Binks…" Kat mumbled the name that the voice reminded her of.

Lopmon was having his own problem with Guilmon's comments… "Why, I outta… Bunny-"

"Don't you dare!!" Kat picked him up and covered his mouth in one movement. _Little brat I just can't take you anywhere, can I?_

"I'm guessing all Terriermon and Lopmon are like that then?" she looked back up to see the boy called Jenrya standing in front of her, his Terriermon giggling as he peeked out from behind his Tamer's legs.

"If you mean 'cute, lovable, annoying little brats,' you're right on target," Kat grimaced, as Lopmon hopped down once more and started imitating Terriermon. Which meant he was soon skipping around Kat's legs in a circle. She sighed again. _Lopmon used to be such a calm little guy… It's all Dashumon and Gomamon's faults… _"Yeah… it's all Dashumon and Gomamon's fault…" she repeated aloud.

"Who's?!" Rika, who'd been talking to Matsuda, spun around suddenly.

"Dashumon… and Gomamon…"

"On the show? Or in life?!"

Kat nodded. "They're the digimon of my friends Hannah and William… Why?"

"This makes our search a heck of a lot easier. Thank Neo, it might have taken a year more to find even another _one_ of us, by searching alone…" Rika sighed in relief. Her voice had become more natural with every sentence, and it was beginning to worry Kat and Lopmon. Jenrya nodded in Rika's direction, and then the both sighed again, as they potted 'Matsuda' grinning gleefully and jumping into the air repeatedly.

"I still say we should have left him to that puppet…" Renamon growled.

"Pup-pet? Ooo…" Giulmon added.

"Neo? Puppet?" Kat and Lopmon both said, confused.

"We'll explain later. I take it your friends… 'live'… in the same area as you? Wow… Colorado and Japan… just like in the show… wow…" Jenrya repeated. "You know, you almost have to wonder, if the guy who created the show… ya know, knew something?"

"You mean you didn't know? He was freed, and long before the show. Same with the O'Malleys," Rika answered.

"I should have guessed," Jenrya shook his head. "Anyway, it's getting late… We'll go for your friends tomorrow, um… Kat, isn't it?" she nodded. "Nonaka-ko, can she stay with you for the time being? I doubt we'll be able to get her her own room for a few days…"

"Fine… at least it's a girl this time, and not you…" she looked back at him. "Oyasumi, Matsuda, Jenrya…" she nearly snarled when she said Matsuda's name, but was much calmer afterwards. Kat glanced between the three other humans and the four digimon in the room. 

__

What have I been thrown into this time? They already have their own pecking order, in addition to the fact that these three are obviously in a position of control here… it can't be just because of their digimon, can it? She watched as Terriermon hopped to a perch atop the back of Jenrya's head, and Giulmon chased after Takato (-mon, as he still called him, _how old is that digimon? Dashumon and Lopmon both quit that within weeks…_).

"Will you hurry, or are you going to just stand there to sleep tonight?" came Rika's irritated voice from the hallway, back to its previous, unmerciful monotonousity… Kat panicked at the absence of the rest of the group, save Lopmon, who was staring up at her.

"You can sleep standing up? You never told me that!! Show-me, show-me…" he chanted, skipping around her hyperly, his bouncing…

Kat groaned. "Lopmon… knock it off… Nonaka-san, wait!" she scooped her bunny-digimon up and ran into the hall. "Nonaka-san? As in Miss Nonaka? Hmm… I like the sounds of that…" she smirked. "Now then, this way to my room. Please, remember that this is _only_ a temporary arrangement…"

"I should hope so…" Renamon agreed, eyeing the rather hyper rabbit walking behind her.

"Me too," Kat agreed as well, much to their surprise. "I mean, otherwise, you might pick up some friendliness from us… wouldn't want you actually being _nice_ to someone other than Jenrya, would we? It might ruin your reputation…" she touted, shaking her head in mock sadness. _This girl is Oniyami to the worst degree! _she thought, comparing her to the Goth-like girl and her Demomon that occasionally hung out with them.

Another near-deafening silence surrounded them. Kat knew she shouldn't have said that, but it was overly tempting. That, and she hoped Rika would actually take her statement seriously… Obviously no one had presented her the idea in the past, as no one but an insane person would have the nerve to say that to the 'Digimon Queen'… Kat or any of her friends, anotherwards, were perfect candidates. Renamon stood ready to attack at a word from Rika, and Lopmon was reluctantly prepared to defend his Tamer if necessary. Rika shook her head solemnly and pushed open a door on the opposite side of the hallway than most.

"You would have seen this tomorrow anyway… but I'll show it to you now…"

__

I don't like the looks of this! was Kat's initial reaction. The first thing she noticed was a chair with foot clamps, and some type of giant needle-like apparatus… not exactly comforting, particularly with the comments that she'd just made to Rika. "What… is it?"

"Something you'll have to get very used to, either it or going to the digital world everyday…" Kat looked at her nervously… Something was different about her now, she was being less proper… almost humorous… something Kat had learned not to trust in people like that… "You get plugged in, and whatever is your mission or training program, is sent directly you your brain…"

"Uh…" _Now I really don't like the sound of this…_

"Would you care to try? I could let you do most anything…" Rika smirked. "You can learn anything this way. Or go anywhere…"

"And Lopmon? What do I do with him?" Kat hugged him closer.

"It's time I taught you to upload. Before, when they brought you here, they sent Lopmon through the Digital World… You and he can go through either way, since it's like a converter… Essentially, it reverts Digimon to a raw data form that the Matrix read as programming code, and will translate most any biological or synthetic material the same way. But right now… you're not going to the Matrix…" Rika motioned to the chair, and began typing things into the computer.

"I'm not?"

"We're not?" Lopmon echoed.

"No. Now, upload Lopmon to your digivice, and we'll load him on to the computer. Where would you want to go?"

"Um… Swimming?" Kat said, and looked at Lopmon in such a manner that a question mark would have been perfectly at home over her head. Lopmon then shrugged in agreement of her confusion.

"He loaded yet?" Rika turned back towards them. To he dismay, Lopmon sat on the floor in front of her. He smiled and waved innocently at her.

"Ugh, amateurs…" Renamon said in disgust. "Rika, just challenge her. I'll monitor the program."

"Hmm… I think I like that idea… You do play, I'm assuming…" she glared at Kat.

"I don't own many… well, er, any, obviously here, but I can beat most anyone with the deck I made," Kat responded stubbornly, folding her arms and glaring back at her challenger.

"Fine, then… we'll see how you can fare against a queen. Load it now, Renamon." She walked over to an identical chair and sat down in it, laying back and closing her eyes. Kat glanced around nervously. "Oh, I guess you'd prefer to have a human plug you in the first time?" Rika stood back up and walked back to her. "Don't worry. It hardly hurts at all."

"Mm…" Kat whimpered. She was actually an obsessant for pain, but still… having a large object resembling a high-tech hyperbolic needle isn't comforting to anyone.

"Just lean back and relax. Renamon, go ahead and tap her in… NOW!"

"Gaie!" Kat screamed. Nothing. She saw nothing, except a giant Japanese version of a card… There was a light breeze, somehow… It blew her bangs over her eyes, and she brushed them aside, looking for any sign of Rika. She scratched one of her arms as she turned around, looking, anywhere, for any indication the last year hadn't been a dream, and this wasn't just one more. Something was wrong… she looked down at her arm… gone! The plug was gone… "How… and… I have hair again…"

"It's what you looked like in the Matrix, right? Or at least what you wanted to…" she motioned to Kat's now deep-teal stained hair. Kat shrugged. "So will you play me, or not?"

"Where's the decks?"

"Ask for it. Go ahead."

"Alright… I want to have my deck Hannah helped me make…" Nothing…

"No, think it's in your hand."

"What?!"

"Just do it."

Kat shrugged and flipped through her selection of cards in her brain. Everything, even the special edition cards she'd gotten with her Digimon World game and the one she'd traded a Blastoise for…

"Now sit down…"

"GAIE!!! Where'd the cards come from?!" there it was, a deck of 30 cards, complete with protectors, sitting in her hands.

"You ready now?" Kat nodded back at her.

**********

"Strange color hair she's got…" Renamon chuckled.

"Eh, all you bunny trainers are alike. You all have blue hair…" Takato sighed.

"Take that back!" Henry countered.

"Yes, Takato-mon, that was rather mean," Giulmon mumbled, meriting a groan from his Tamer. By now, the four were all glaring at each other.

"Um… Bunny?" Lopmon questioned.

"Um… Momentie!" Terriermon panicked.

"Do you think they'd get mad at us for watching them battle?" Lopmon suggested.

"Only if it's a Strip-match," Takato decided. Everyone looked over at him with an expression of deep concern for his mental health and well being.

"Where'd that come from?"

"What have you done with the real Takato-mon?"

"Will you males all just be SILENT!! They're battling now…"

"Momentie?"

**********

"*Score is currently, 800 to 500. Nonaka is currently winning. Begin next round!*" came a computerized voice, as the two girls stared at each other once more.

"I told you you couldn't win."

"I haven't lost yet… Digivolution; digivolve to Gatomon…"

**********

"Man!! No way, only Kazu's scored a 500 against her before! Dang, this girl actually is good…" Takato whistled.

"It's not necessarily her. I think it's just a very effective deck," Renamon was glaring in disbelief at the screen. It *was* true… only one person had ever managed above a 300 against her before…

"Hey!! One of them one! It's over!"

"_One_ of them one? Lopmon, I think you mean Rika won," Henry sighed.

"Yeah, well nyah for attempting to make my Tamer look better. Humph!"

**********

"You are very good, I'll admit it Rika."

"It's Nonaka unless we're in the Matrix, and remember it!!"

"My friend Hannah could still beat you though. And tell me… do you play anything else? Pokémon or CardCaptors, perhaps?"

"Bring it on…"

**********

"What?! What are they doing now?! I can't see!!!"

"Lopmon, momentie!"

"Hey, Takato, that's my word!!"

"I think they're playing… Pokémon?" Henry's eyes grew wide as he glanced over the screen.

"Curse the rotten creatures…" Renamon sighed… "I can't believe she'd still play that, after all she's a Tamer now…"

"Having things be real can take a lot of fun out of them…" Takato shrugged. " We can all use a break from digimon occasionally…"

"You're the one who's been stealing my Tenchi Muyo disks, aren't you?!"

"Hey, I only borrowed them!!"

**********

This game, unlike the previous one, was going by with no talking once so ever from the players. Kat had been silently playing with her Lickitung and Aerodactyl since the second turn. Rika was getting a taste of what it was like to Digi-card battle with her. She'd only one chance left, before Kat took her last prize card…

"Next game, I choose…" Rika snarled.

"Sore looser? Fine, then. But in that case, you're going down hard," she switched a few of her cards around, and sent out a fully loaded Articuno. "Bai-bai." Rika only sighed…

**********

"My goodness, she beat her!"

"At pokémon. She's still the digimon queen. And I think I read something about Kat in the archives… she was second in her state at pokémon, lost by one card, and was the only one to even put a dent in the other girl's score."

"Dang…"

"Yep, that she did!" [A/N it really is true… I was on the news…]

**********

On and on, for the next nearly 3 hours, the two battled one card game after another. By the end of the time, Rika only had Kat beat by one game… otherwise the score would have been tied… and it was Kat who actually suggested they call it a night. More accurately, she fell asleep on the Monster Rancher playing mat. They both came back to the regular world, and Rika had Renamon and the other digimon lead Kat to their room.

"She's actually quite good," Rika admitted. "She could never beat me at Digimon, but she would deserve to be the champion on several other games."

"You have a rival then, O master of the cards?" she glared at Takato.

"No, goggle-head… I have an apprentice…"

**********

"I'm up already! Geesh!"

"Serves you right Matsuda, to be Diamond Stormed…" Rika rolled her eyes as she and her digimon went walking down the hall, and Takato wandered off in some other direction, rubbing his attacked behind. Kat walked behind the other girls, struggling not to giggle, as well as not to yawn. She'd probably gotten… 5 hours of sleep that night? But she didn't need much, not after sleeping for 24 hours straight the night before.

"I…" Kat paused as she finally had to yawn, "still can't believe that it's 2244… you know, I thought maybe if I went to sleep, I'd wake up and it'd have all been a dream… but I didn't even dream of the Matrix…" she shrugged. "I just had some sort of strange rendition of the dream I always used to have every night, only this time he was saying it'd happened and wishing me luck…"

"He who?" Lopmon questioned his Tamer.

"That guy again… I don't know who it was, because he was only an outline… remember?" Lopmon nodded in response.

"That's weird… sounds a bit like a dream I'd have when I was little. There was this girl with a ponytail who was nothing but an outline… and she always told me to hold on and watch out, because it was coming… it disappeared the day I watched Digimon for the first time…" Henry offered. "Of course, by now the voice is familiar enough to me that I think I know who it was," he whispered to Kat, motioning to Rika. Kat grinned and raised her eyebrows at him. "Hey, watch it! It's not what you think," he growled.

"Sure… that's what they all say…"

"Quit it!"

"Momentie Hen… er, Jenrya! This is very unlike you!" Terriermon complained. Lopmon nodded in agreement.

"What are you two rabbit Tamers up to now?" Rika and Renamon growled at once. Kat only needed one glare from Henry to know that the proper response to this was,

"Nothing. Just talking."

"Arguing, actually," Lopmon corrected them. Obviously, he had not seen Henry's 'do and die' look.

"You bunny Tamers are so weird," Rika sighed, walking along further, into a room with a computer setup but it actually appeared to be a mess hall. Kat and Lopmon quietly sat down and glanced around. Not much to be seen. Except Takato watching the computer as if it were a TV. Watching pokémon, to be exact.

"Can someone kill the rodent?" she mumbled. Takato turned and looked at her, swallowing some of whatever he'd been eating.

"If you mean Pikachu, no way! He's cool!" he and Giulmon grinned. Kat sweatdropped in response and looked at the bowl that had been set in front of her by someone or another else who worked in their obviously.

"Oatmeal!" Lopmon yelled enthusiastically.

"Don't get too used to it," Rika said sharply, "You're fortunate that you came here during one of the few times of the year that we had close to real food. You're friends won't be so lucky if we don't free them in the next day or two."

Everyone ate in silence after that comment, the only noise being random shouts from whatever recorded thing Takato was watching at that moment, and responses from Rika or Renamon to turn it down. Finally Henry set his nearly empty bowl down and stood up.

"Alright then, what are we waiting for? Let's go get your friends!"

__

You'll only say that until you meet Oniyami… Kat grimaced, watching the enthusiasm from the male portions of the group.

Now, don't expect me to put things like this up too often. 5.7 thousand word chapters are not my specialty. Next chapter will be up in a few weeks… until then, review please, and E-mail [CCRya@aol.com][1]. Ja ne to heiwa!

   [1]: mailto:CCRya@aol.com



	2. 2

*blink, blink* the queen of multi-tasking is back!! I've been writing this by hand and finally got around to typing it up, when I'm not working on one of the other... 6 stories I'm currently on? No, it's more, I've got to remember my Christmas specials... Well, here it is though...

**REDEFINING=RE@L**

**Lyra of Destiny**

"What do you mean, they still know I exist?!"

"Exactly. They think you're at summer camp. And then, we'll put in a program extension to replace you." Kat stared blankly at Henry after hearing his explanation.

"But..."

"Well, you can't very well just disappear or die, can you?" She blinked a few times.

Rika sighed. "Look, like it or now, it'd have a bigger effect than you might think if you suddenly just disappeared Get it yet?"

"Um... yeah... Sorry, I had just thought that, well, I'd never existed in this world since in reality I don't anymore."

"It's not reality..." Renamon reminded Kat coldly.

"Sorry, it doesn't work like that!" Takato said, a bit more hyper than usual, and patted Giulmon on the head.

Lopmon blinked and gave Kat a skeptical look. "But, if you didn't exist, why would Hannah have recognized your voice?" he questioned her, regarding her earlier phone call to her best friend besides himself.

"Oh, don't bug me on details!!" Kat whined and set him on the ground rather roughly so she could pout. Lopmon sighed and shook his head, before looking dreamily off at the cloudy sky.

"What's that noise?" Giulmon glanced around.

"Sounds like something Rika'd listen to on her headphones," his Tamer suggested.

Kat, on the other hand, looked up and glanced around. _This place... is so familiar... I think I know it... and that sound..._ she listened carefully to the music, a heavy beat that sounded out above the faint noise of an electric guitar and keyboard. There was far too much strength in the beat for it to be from a stereo... it was clearly being played on drums that very moment. A sudden flash of a deathly shade of black, accompanied by a red spark and glow in the form, went by so fast that only a Tamer, Digimon, or eagle could have spotted the form. This confirmed Kat's suspicions. _She's out there..._ "She's here..." she said in a low tone.

"Who? What?" the guys questioned.

"Don't you feel it?" Renamon scolded them.

"There's an edge in the air, and how silent it all feels, although we can hear the beat of that drum set...?" Rika finished. The two guys closed their eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded. Kat took a step forward.

"Demomon! I know you're here!" she called into the growing darkness caused by a brewing storm. Wind rustled and raced silently through the trees, causing leaves and petals to move almost as if alive from one location to another on the ground, in what appeared to be organized forms. "These people are Tamers too! Show yourself, I request!"

A black blur raced past a few times before halting in the midst of a fog of dust and leaves. The drum in the background felt like a heartbeat as the debris settled.

"I don't like this..." Henry whispered, pulling a card from his pocket. Giulmon scooted behind Takato, and Renamon flexed her claws anxiously.

"Yes?" the black wolf asked in a voice that was almost silence. /her red eyes glowed fiercely, yet in a way that seemed only to be in the mind of the viewer. She scanned the row of humans and Digimon doubtingly, her tail twitching in a manner that gave a sense of foreboding to most of the onlookers. Even Kat, who had encountered the Rookie, easily a match for most any champion, many times had to shudder at the aura that Demomon gave off. But she knew quite well that this was not by any means an evil Digimon. Her Tamer had once said, that 'maybe if people looked at Daemons, and Demomon, like glass, they'd see that the darkness is only a reflection of themselves.'

Kat inhaled deeply, reciting the simple phrase in her mind to remind herself that Demomon was only a threat if you saw her as one. "We would like to speak to Oniyami..."

"Very well, I will ask..." and with that, she was gone once more, nothing more than a black tome in the otherwise clear wind as she raced towards the half collapsed building in these woods. The silence seemed to be cut short as the sound of the music refilled the area, radiating from the building, and the rest of the stillness was lifted as leaves once more drifted on the wind.

"What. Was. That?" Henry demanded, obviously more than slightly shocked.

"That was Demomon, " Kat said slyly. "The digimon equivalent of the Guardian Daemons, and the only one of her kind..." [A/N: More about the Guardian Daemons when Adrie and I release MultiVerse sneak peeks!]

"Thank goodness!" Terriermon and Lopmon chorused.

"She *will* hear you..." Kat reminded them harshly.

"So... who exactly is this Oniyami person?"

"The human equivalent of Demomon, a Tamer who hates everyone but Demomon... At least she's willing to even occasionally talk to me... she normally shuns all others," Kat explained. "Oh, she's the drummer in the band... and has a tendency to wear all black... the only perk in her personality is the fact that her shirt says 'Penguin' in Katakana..."

"Ouch..." Takato winced. "This is fantastic. A Goth demon Tamer."

"Oh, she doesn't sound so bad to me..." Rika shrugged. "Sounds like me in my darkest hour."

"Much worse, believe me...." Kat trailed off as the stillness filled the air again. But this time, there was no Demomon... just silence, except for the synchronized beep from all four of their digivices. "She's gone..." Kat said silently. "Damn her, she ran off to the digital world!"

"No..." Henry said. They all looked at him. "No, she didn't. there's no activity on the barrier any time in the last half hour... she had to have gone somewhere else..."

"well, she's most definitely not on Earth, so where could she be?" Takato demanded.

"On Earth?" Renamon suggested.

"Oh, yeah... sometimes, I forget that we're in a computer program..."

"But that's just impossible... she always seems to be here, hidden in these woods... and wouldn't you know about her if she was in the true world?" Kat complained.

"We'll run a scan," Henry snatched a cell phone from his waist, flipping it open and dialing a number quickly.

"Operator?" came a voice on the phone. Henry tossed the phone to Rika.

"Yes, this is Nonaka. We need a data search."

"Got it. Name?"

"Oniyami..." she looked up at Kat. Who shrugged. "Oniyami is all we know for the name. Goth girl. Lives in the Colorado area in the Matrix..."

"Positive identification... Oniyami Mitsuyo... but only one can be found anywhere in the Matrix files with that name... says here she died at least 4 years ago, though... attacked by a wolf, evidently."

"That's all we needed," she flipped the phone shut and handed it back. "Evidently she was killed by a wolf..."

"Far from it..." Kat mumbled. "Damn her, why does she always have to do these things...?"

**********

"I'm not sure whether or not to warn you about this one..." Kat said solemnly, reaching up and ringing the doorbell of the house they were at. "You would have all been better prepared, had you met Bri... but concerning you know Takato... you should be fairly well off," she rolled her eyes.

"What? This one is a wild one too?" Renamon said quietly.

"You know, I wish you wouldn't use that phrase!" the accused whined.

"She's just stating the obvious, goggle-head," Rika added.

"I've got enough of a headache after dealing with Demomon..." Kat growled. The others all looked over to her. "Lopmon knows too, don't you?" Lopmon looked up at her from his spot in her arms and nodded. "She can probe your mind. Find whatever she wants. If she and Oniyami didn't know about the Matrix already... they do now..."

"Then she can intercept the programming? Read what your thoughts are within it?" Henry asked.

"Yeah, what he said," Terriermon chimed.

"I guess that's really what it is... but I'm betting she'd be able to do that in the real world too..." the door creaked open behind her, and she immediately looked floorward at the Digimon who she'd known would answer the door.

"Hi, Kat!" he said happily. "Who are your friends?"

"A Gomamon?!" all three of the other humans were stunned. They'd expected something else exotic, what with Demomon, talk of Dashumon, and their own two, with Lopmon and Terriermon being rare species as well.

"What?! I'm not good enough for you?" Gomamon asked, staring up at his prosecutors. "I could always digivolve to Dolphmon if that'd help!"

"No, that'll be quite alright. You'll have to forgive them, they just met Demomon, you see, and... well, you know. Hey, where's William?"

"Oh, he'll be right down. He wanted to get his sunglasses. I don't see why he'd need them, though, concerning the storm... Demomon caused it, didn't she?" Kat nodded. "Thought so. But I still don't know why he thinks he needs..." Gomamon took a good look at Kat again. She was wearing her own shades, and had been. "Oh, yeah, eye protection... gotta love it, wouldn't you agr-"

"Hey, Kat!" Everyone's eyes went up from the small Digimon on the ground to the face of a tall, deep red-haired boy standing in the doorway. He grinned and slipped his magenta-framed shades over his eyes, walking out the door and closing it behind him. "What'sup?" he gave her a high five and then gave Lopmon one too. "Whoa... Tamer party, huh?" he laughed. Kat was, by this time, cracking up, mostly do to the fact that he had obviously purposely left one end of his outer shirt tucked in... to his sleeve.

"Hey, ya know what?" Terriermon whispered to his friends. "He looks like Willis!" [Puts in little ding-dong transition effects...]

"Only you would know that, rabbit..." Renamon rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall.

"What's a Willis?"

"William, these are my new friends, Rika, Henry, and... Takato... and their Digimon, Renamon, I think you can recognize the Terriermon, and Giulmon," Kat pointed them out one by one.

"Cool. Give me five, everyone! And a kiss for the lady," he kissed Rika's hand after she had reluctantly high fived him.

"Act's like him, too..." she growled under her breath and shook her hand off.

"Hey, is there some place in your house we and some other stuff can all fit into? Because we have a lot of explaining to do..." Kat mumbled, as William immediately opened the door and led them all in.

**********

"I wonder why Hannah hasn't gotten here yet..." Kat paced nervously by the window. Rika stood in the other corner, talking on the phone with headquarters, arranging something... All the Digimon were playing hide and seek, and Renamon had only joined because she was able to teleport out to the roof, allowing herself peace from the male Digimon... The guys were playing a three-way game in the middle room, hoping that at least some of the information they had given him would sink in through William's head... Apparently, it actually had, but he didn't care. That was the good thing about him... he took everything in stride. It would probably take the world getting blown up to even make him flinch. It wasn't that he wasn't observant... he noticed everything, it was just that... Somehow *anything* could be perfectly normal for him. Him and his Gomamon. The partners that could get through anything. It was almost chaotic, actually... William had been crazy enough to try to teach Gomamon to rollerblade one day... Obviously it hadn't worked...

A phone beeped and clicked shut, drawing everyone's attention back to Rika in her corner of the room. "It's all set up. Do you have a computer we can use, William?" she rubbed the back of her hand on her jeans as she said his name.

"Oh, sure..."

"Shouldn't we be waiting for Hannah and Dashumon?" Kat wondered, looking out the window again.

"No. it'd be easier to take them one at a time. They won't get shocked seeing the other one go, either, this way. Luckily, this building can act as a port..." she sat down and started typing away quickly, entering so much program code in less than a minute that Kat was shocked the computer could keep up.

"Dang, girl... I've never seen anyone type that fast..." William stared over her shoulder. "and it's all binary, too... how did you memorize that sequence?!"

"I didn't," she said firmly. "Now, sit down, put on this head set, and hang on..." she tossed the headset to him. "It's gonna be a bumpy ride..."

**********

"Hello? Someone? Anyone? Oh... hi, Lopmon..."

"Hannah! Dashumon! Come up stairs, it's your turn!"

"Our turn? For what?" Hannah halted at the door.

"Kat!" Dashumon went running up the stairs and jumped into the girls arms, fairly much forgetting her own Tamer as she and Kat's actual Digimon as they came wandering up the stairs behind her. "Katmon, whatcha doing?" she questioned, looking around the room over her shoulder.

"Oh... you'll know soon enough. And you still call me Katmon? Why is it only me you have to do that too?"

"Because Hannahmon and Williammon don't make sense!"

"She's got a point there," Lopmon nodded, jumping into Kat's arms as Dashumon tried her best to float down to the ground. She resembled a cat with a large, squirrel-like tail instead of a normal one, and tiny wings, though they weren't good for much except slowing her down a bit if she fell. In these occasions they could, however, expand involuntarily... but much like Calumon's ears....

"Hi guys, whatcha up to?" speak of the little cute thing.

"Oh, just great, there's one here too..." Rika mumbled, looking at the tiny white digimon who'd just climbed in through the window.

"You mean there's another one of you Tamers in Japan?" Kat asked her.

"No... Calumon and Impmon just sorta wander around on their own..."

"Oh... well, this Calumon *has* a Tamer... but he's out of town a lot, so I couldn't get a hold of him... yet..."

"He's at a skateboarding competition in Miami," Hannah corrected her, looking around the room. "And what have you done to William's room? And where is he? And who the hell are these three?!" Now that she'd stepped out from the shadows of the staircase, her near-white blonde hair shone, with what little daylight was now seeping through Demomon's dying storm, and looked actually quite elegant as it fell over most her left side, including her eye. The eye left uncovered was an almost metallic shade of steel gray... And though these things, combined with the deep tan and midriff clothing, gave her a look of someone who faded into the background, or of your average beach or outdoor mall crawler... this was Denver. A place that... wasn't exactly near the ocean. So that knowledge, combined with and intensified by the sharp expression on her face, and her pose as she held, with a hand still wearing a wrist guard, her frame-less sunglasses to the side of her face, made it clear that she was one to stand out from the crowd. She propped her skateboard against the wall and walked over to Kat, glaring sharply down at her. [for once my character *isn't* the tallest! Even though I am in life!] "What, the hell, is going on here, Kat?"

Despite how threatening Hannah looked to even Rika at the moment, Kat merely smiled at her and pointed to a chair by the computer. "Yo, girl, chill! We'll tell ya!"

"'Chill'?"

"'We'll tell ya'?" the group of more... foreign Tamers sweatdropped at the skater lingo the girls were using freely. Kat sat down and slowly started explaining and introducing everyone, while Hannah paced across the room, spinning her skateboard in her hands occasionally. Calumon was sitting on the windowsill, having the look of paying more attention to Kat and the Japanese Tamers than Hannah was, until Terriermon and Lopmon challenged him to a poking contest.

"You're expecting me, to just *believe* you, and these three kids who just happen to be Tamers, that this isn't the real world? And all this other junk? For all I know, you could have just introduced some of the new kids in your Japanese class to Lopmon, and they ended up with Digimon, just like Andrew did a few months back, and then you watched The Matrix too much, and made this whole pile of shite up."

"Wait a second," Henry stood up and looked between the two. "You introduced a friend to your Digimon, and he ended up a Tamer?" the two girls nodded.

"He's the one who has Calumon..."

"Hey, Takato, I think you need to call your buddies and girlfriend then!" Henry handed him the phone with a laugh.

"She's not my girlfriend. And I dunno about the guys, but... But we **all** agreed, that Jeri shouldn't be pulled into this yet!"

"Oh brother," Rika sighed. "Goggle-head, you're getting more pathetic by the day. We could of used her help, strange as she is, and I-"

"I just think you're jealous..."

"Renamon?! Now you've turned on me too?! Fine, then..." Rika walked out of the room, William's portable phone held up to her ear as she faded away in the same manner characteristic to her Digimon. The phone fell to the ground behind her.

"Ok, now *that*, that was freaky..." Hannah commented finally, breaking the silence. "Don't tell me that she... went to the world you were talking about?" she brushed her hair from her face, picking Dashumon up and staring hard at the remaining people and monsters in the room. "I'm taking the silence as a yes. Great. So, when do we leave for Odd World?"

"It's not odd... it's real. Unlike here. And anytime you want to is fine," Henry started to type the programming into William's computer again, placing the phone onto the proper location.

"Or don't want to. It doesn't matter, anytime right now is good," Kat grinned, convincing Calumon to leave for the time being.

"Impersonate your drafting teacher again and die."

"We'll have plenty of time for that later," Kat shook her head and helped Hannah out with the headset and other equipment, recalling how it had been used on herself and on William. "For now, I'll see you when you wake up... in a couple of centuries..."

"What?!"

**********

It had been all of a week since William and Hannah had been added to the growing list of freed Tamers. It had been found, back in Japan, that Kazu, Kenta, another guy, and Susan, much to Henry's dismay, as well as obviously Jeri, could soon be added to that list. But all were recently proclaimed Tamers... It would be too much strain on the average one of them to have this thrown onto the load they were having to deal with, so for the time being the six that *were* already freed would have to do.

"She's here somewhere, isn't she?" William said casually as the Japanese Tamers led the American ones through one of the cities.

"Who?"

"The demon girl. She's been here for a long time, I'm betting. That's why she disappears, in the way I've seen Renamon do since we've got here."

"I always thought she was just a walking Digiport or something like that..."

"*Lopmon!*" Kat hissed. "I really don't know... But, we'd have to tell you sooner or later, that she was, in fact, out here somewhere."

"That's a real encyclopedia there, Kat," Hannah sighed.

"Sorry we don't have more information on your friend. But it is very difficult to find people here in the real world, though it's not like we do it on purpose," Rika decided to comment.

"Oh, it wasn't that. It was partially the typical sense of fear and foreboding I get when I know Demomon is nearby, and partially the *really* weird signal that just showed up on my Digivice that made me think that..."

"oh... right," the rest of the group responded sheepishly.

Behind them the shadows moved with life, pacing silently in a circle around the small group. The same voice like silence filled the ears of anyone who cared to hear, which was no one at that moment. "They're here..."

I realize how much shorter this one is than the last chapter, but writing two extremely dark fics at once is stressful... *one of her Christmas specials scares herself* And yes, Oniyami is a product of Adrie's mind... I don't know which dark corner of it, though... Review, please. Thank you.


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